


Whisper

by HarlequinSmiles



Category: PewDiePie (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Creepyshizzle, Cry gets fucked over by people who hack his laptop, Cry's an adorable lil shit and doesn't deserve this shit, Cry's hating feeling helpless but he can't help it, F/M, Flowey - Freeform, FloweytheFlowercoswhythefucknot, Fluff, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, PewdieCry - Freeform, Pewds is totally trying to make his feel better but sometimes it just doesn't work, Yeah pewdiecry, the mask is gone, well I'm shit at tags but hopefully okay at writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5678461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarlequinSmiles/pseuds/HarlequinSmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One fuckup.<br/>He knew that from the start.<br/>One fuckup was all that was needed.<br/>One slip of the tongue, one stray image. One wrong name, one camera, one phone number, one home address.<br/>One fuckup, and he was ruined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Cryaotic. ChaoticMonki. Cry. Ryan. Everyone knew his fucking name now."

Cry wasn't used to crying, even after three solid days of doing so. He never cried when he was younger, not even when the first girl he ever loved moved away without ever knowing how he felt. Not even when he was so utterly, agonisingly alone, trapped inside the blacked, lonely box of his own dark world, before he ever knew how free a simple gaming channel could make him feel.

But now, the tears almost felt normal, lurching down his face with a sadistic enthusiasm, mixing with the rain that soaked his hair and dragged cold, numbing fingers down the back of his neck. He'd started crying three days ago, when he'd logged onto his YouTube account to find his comment system rammed with the same words, repeating over and over like a mantra, a prayer thrown into the black sky during a satanic festival:

_"We found you, Cry!"_

_"Why the fuck did they do this?"_

_"Oh my God, Cry, have you seen this?"_

Maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised- it was the internet, after all- and it wasn't like he could stay hidden forever. There were so many people out there, so many curious people who could control computers in twisted ways that he couldn't even fathom. So many people who wouldn't- who couldn't- respect his privacy, who'd take his anonymousy as nothing but a new challenge for their skills.

But no. Because the world didn't really work like that. Because he'd decided to cloak himself in this... _stupid_... illusion, this _fantasy,_ where he'd convinced himself that behind a blank computer screen, he was untouchable, unidentifiable. That he could live his life doing exactly what he loved without the whiplash of fame and attention that undoubtedly followed, just as New Year's Day insisted on trailing doggedly after Christmas.  
He rubbed at his eyes before shoving his hands back into his pockets.

Cryaotic. ChaoticMonki. Cry. Ryan. Everyone knew his fucking name now.

He was piss-drunk, his brain swimming with the _untz-untz_ of rain against his skull, as if there was a heavy-metal band inside his head. His hood was pulled as far over his face as he could get it, blonde fringe plastered against his face. The internet used to assume that his hair was brown, a soft, chocolate colour, even when he admitted that it wasn't. He was pretty sure that everyone knew that it wasn't anymore.

It had always been funny being drunk before, especially on the livestreams, when jokes would come so goddam easily, when talking to people was actually fun. This time, though, drinking until the world had dissolved into a blur was just so he could actually cope with the world falling around him.

Cry shrugged to himself. He'd taken the first plane out of the US, told Cheyenne to pack her bags and to never talk to him again, ordered his family to delete his number from their phones. Maybe he was being stupid, but that had always been the reason for masking his face. The internet was always such a twisted place, so many people he was afraid of, who could have find him, who might want to hurt him or the people he cared about.

He'd never wanted that to happen, but maybe he always knew that it would. Eventually.

But hey, it had, and now he'd managed to strand himself in... where had that plane gone to?... it was England, right?... He'd stranded himself in some city that he couldn't remember the name of, at three o'clock in the morning, alcohol screaming through his veins like some fucking express train of nausea and confusion, waves of dizziness almost sending him tumbling into the road.

Not that it was his fault if he did fall into the way of a car. Everyone in England drove on the wrong fucking side of the road, anyway.

He toppled sideways, almost at a comically slow speed, back sliding against a dustbin with the paint peeling like old scabs. Rainwater soaking through his jeans, alcohol clinging to him like sweat- he’d never imagined he’d ever end up like this, not even when he was depressed and imprisoned in his self-made prison of loneliness and self-hatred.

His phone sat silent in his jeans pocket. He'd first turned it off when he slid down into his plane seat and simply never bothered to turn it back on again. It was quieter- easier to drown himself within the tormentous sea of his own thoughts.

There'd been dozens of missed calls and almost fifty text messages, most of them from his family and close friends, but he couldn’t help but wonder how his computer was coping. His laptop was stowed away in the small bag lying at his feet, but his main computer- the one he used for his gaming and general communication with the outside world- was still at his home in America, screen probably still buzzing considering he forgot to even turn it off. He sighed- he didn’t want to even imagine this month’s electricity bill.

He barely used his phone, if at all, and the main way he talked to any of the Late Night Crew was through Skype. It was always easier that way- his internet friends stayed locked inside his computer screen, where it was simple and easy, where he knew he’d always be accepted. It was Jund, not Scott. It was Minx, not Michelle. It was Pewds, not Felix.

And Jesus Christ, even though he’d ever shown his face to them once or twice in all the years he’d known them, they sure were better friends than he’d ever had in the real world.

He sighed, running a shaking hand through his damp hair. Everything was so fucked.

He pulled out his phone, flicked off the airplane mode and scowled at the sudden bombardment of message alerts. That’d be… fifty _three_ new messages… fifty _four_ … fifty _five_ …  
He leant back against the dustbin, watching the university students that staggered past, clustered together like a pack of wild animals- hair tousled, eyes bleary, makeup dragging lazy fingers down their faces. He scowled at each one as they passed, as if there was nothing more intimidating than a drunk twenty-something year old man with blonde hair plastered to his skull, an empty beer bottle clutched in one hand and an out of date mobile phone in the other.

His phone buzzed again. Fifty six messages now. He pulled it out, ready to turn it off, as his ringtone sang out into the cold air.

It was an unknown number, and for a brief, furious moment, Cry couldn’t help but wonder if it was the person who’d leaked his identity in the first place. A stupid idea, but he answered the call anyway, snarling into the speaker. “What the fuck do you want?”

The voice on the other end was far too familiar, but in his alcohol-addled state, Cry couldn’t tie the face to the name. “Cry? Hey, is that you, bro?”

He frowned. “It might be. It might not. Who’s Cry, anyway? Everyone knows Cry now. Everyone knows who Cry is, even though I didn’t want them to. And it’s not fair, but when was the world ever fair, right, friend?”

The voice on the other end had an accent he couldn’t quite place. “Cry… Ryan? Bro? Are you drunk? Where are you?”

He slowly dragged himself back to his feet, leaning heavily against the dustbin, as if it was one of those loyal friends that carried you home whenever you found yourself too drunk to walk. A woman struggled past, head ducked down against the rain and threw him a nervous glance. Cry waved.

“What does it matter anyway?” he slurred. “And whothefuckisthisanyway? I don’t like talking to people.”

There was a sigh. “Bro, it’s Felix. Pewdiepie? It took me hours to get your number. Are you okay?”

Goddamit. There it was again- that pang of emotion, that small stab of pain located just behind his ribcage- easy to ignore but almost impossible to forget. He threw down another mouthful of beer and shrugged, as if the guy on the other end of the line was even able to see him, cradling his fifth bottle of beer to his chest, just as he always did when his cat jumped into the warm confines of his arms in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Cry sighed, stretched, fumbled drunkenly down the sidewalk… oh wait, street… he was in England now, wasn’t he? Should probably start queuing up for a cup o’ tea or some shit, apologising for every little aggravation.

“I’m fine. Great. Totally fine. I’m- I’m…” Cry choked and suddenly realised he was crying again.

God _dammit_.

“Hey, hey, bro, calm down,” Pewds’ voice was soft down the line. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Cry shook his head even though he knew Pewds couldn’t see him- bedraggled, half-conscious, stumbling past unlit buildings and dingy little shops. “It’s not,” he whispered, barely audible over the rain. “It’s not gonna be okay, nothing’s gonna be okay. Everything’s ruined and it’s not even my fault.”

The sky was stained crimson now, as if the clouds have been taken to with a kitchen knife, blood staining the world like an ink stain on paper. Cry checked his watch, shocked to find that back in Florida it’d be almost three in the morning, but it was dawn now in England. That was why he felt so exhausted, why his legs were leaden and his head felt heavy. Alcohol aside, of course.

He dragged in a deep breath before continuing, letting the oxygen calm his nerves somewhat. “I’m sorry, friend, it’s just everything’s been ruined and-“

“I know, Cry, I know.” Pewds murmured, as if Cry was nothing more than a startled animal. “I saw it a few hours ago. I’m so sorry.”

Cry exhaled. “I just… I don’t… I can’t…” He couldn’t find the words.

There was a silence on the other end- the kind of silence that hung on forever, that dug its claws into the phone line and insisted on dragging on for as long as it could. Finally, when his voice was nothing more than a rattle, Cry peered up at the bloody sky, closed his eyes, and whispered: “I don’t know what to do, Pewds.”

“Listen,” Pewds said after a pause, “do you know where you are? Like, are you still in Florida or-“

“I’m in England,” Cry interrupted, passing a hand over his face.

“Wait, you’re in England? Why? I mean, how?”

Cry stumbles down the path, ignoring the way the sea breeze grappled at his hair, tugging insistently at his clothes. He hiccupped. “I got the first plane out… out of everything…. And then I walked for a bit… got a cab… Got no money left now, though, which sucks.” He straightened, found himself next to some long stretch of sandy beach, the sand twisting like phantoms in the cool wind, and threw his empty bottle out as far as he could. In the distance, he heard the shatter of glass.  
In his drunken state, he couldn’t decide whether Pewds now sounded excited or even more worried. Maybe neither, maybe both. Cry didn’t particularly care either way.

“Yeah, but, where are you, Cry? I could come and pick you up….?”

“Why?” Cry snapped. “Why would you bother doing that after what happened last time? After what I…” And there he was, crying again. He never cried, unless it was at a particularly sad video game. He always pictured himself as one of those strong, silent types, and yet here he was, sobbing down a phone about every single little nuance.

It was only then that he recognised that particular beach, the long promenade that clung to the edge of the beach like a lover. He staggered forward, phone still clutched in one trembling hand, the other wrapped around the icy railing as he continued forward, flashing glances at the roads and side-streets that veered away.

There was a sigh. “Cry, you didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve already been over this. Just tell me where you are and I can come and get you. It’s not safe out there.”

“I’m twenty six, Felix.”

“And that changes shit.” There was a deep, hollow breath, as if he was struggling to cling onto his temper. Cry kept walking. When Pewds finally did speak again, it was too cheerful, too forced. “Imma keep bugging you until you tell me, bro. It’s not just about me- Russ and Cheyenne have been ringing me all morning, and they keep talking about your family freaking…”

Cry found the right street before collapsing against the sign, shivering in his soaked clothes. He pulled himself back to his feet, pulled down his hood, and continued to shuffle forward, the bottoms of his jeans scuffing against the sidewalk (oh, sorry, it’s still ‘ _pavement_ ’). He appeared to have a hole in one of his sneakers- his sock was wet.

He panted out a breath and peered up at the sky, as if all the answers he needed were up there, somewhere, and he just needed to look harder. Pewds was still talking, as if he needed to fill up the hollow silence with meaningless words about how many people were worrying, how many people fucking cared.

What number had it been again? Oh- there was that car. The mini had a splattering of mud over the number plate.

“Cry?” Pewds asked hesitantly, and he suddenly sounded so sad, so lonely and worried, that Cry’s heart began to hurt. “Listen… Ryan, please. Please…”  
That was when his voice cracked, and Pewds began to cry into the phone. Cry made his way up to the door, his mobile phone still clutched in his hand and pressed to his ear, his other hand raised nervously.

Then he let out a breath, almost choking on the stench of alcohol and misery that cloaked his own skin, and then he knocked on the door.

There was nothing, a caught breath on the other end of the phone line, before Pewds hung up completely. And then, slowly, so slowly, the front door finally opened.

Pewds was standing there, surrounded by a halo of warm light, his hand still on the doorknob and his lips parted in… almost shock.

And Cry was at his doorstep, dishevelled and dirty, soaked in sweat, rainwater and alcohol. He was unshaven and his hair was piled in an unsightly mess on his head.

But then Pewds opened his arms slowly, almost cautiously, and Cry took a final step before falling into them, breathing in the safe scent of one of his best friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Swedish accent was soft and soothing. “C’mon, Cry, I'll sort this."
> 
> Cry’s fingers were tingling, like pins and needles, and he couldn’t take his eyes from the blood on his hands.

Cry’s head was spinning.

Or maybe the room was spinning and Cry was stuck in the middle of it, like he was standing inside a carousel, with colours and shapes flashing past his face at an undeterminable speed.

His mouth was agonisingly dry, his head- his goddam brain- was throbbing, like it had grown twice its size and pressing against his skull. He was one of those Action Man dolls his brother used to have all those years ago- all plastic joints and stiff limbs- and even sitting up was agonising.

He could barely make anything out through half-closed eyes and the bright lights that were streaming through the split between the drawn curtains. It seemed like a lounge- the room sparsely furnished with couches and ornate photo frames, the wooden floor spotless and ornate mirrors and photo frames hanging from the walls.

He spat out a groan as he sat up, almost collapsing back into the couch as the room dipped, disappeared and swung back up again. He couldn’t remember much- there’d been the plane, obviously, the airport, the walking and then… had it been raining? Shit, it’d been fucking throwing it down, hadn’t it? He’d never liked it- back in Florida it was always too warm for comfort; he could’ve been standing in the garden, soaked to the skin but perfectly content, but the second he stepped inside, the cold would hit him and _bam,_ he’d be a human icicle… a human _Crycicle..._

God, he shouldn’t try to be funny, especially when his head was probably about to explode. He also wasn’t funny in the slightest, never thought himself to be, so he really shouldn’t even bother trying to make jokes.

Goddammit, though. His head hurt.

“Yo, Cry?” The voice was tentative, as if the person it belonged to couldn’t decide whether Cry was actually awake. He waved a hand at them, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Go ‘way.” He waved his hand in the voice’s direction.

There was a hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm, but he couldn’t shake it off. “Cry, how are you doing?”

He groaned. “I feel like shit.”

There was a soft laugh and he finally pulled his hands away from his eyes. Goddammit, it was bright outside. The curtains could at least be closed. Felix sat down next to him on the sofa. “That’s not too surprising, really. You looked like shit this morning.”

“This morning?” Cry peered at Felix from the corner of his eye. “Why, what time is it now?”

Felix checked his watch. “Uh, it’s almost three in the afternoon.”

Cry groaned as he felt Felix pushing a glass into his hand. “Here,” he said, the Swedish accent soft and soothing. “You should have a drink or something. It’ll probably help.”

Cry took small sips as Felix sat next to him patiently, humming a tune Cry vaguely recognised from a video game he’d played at some point. The water was cold and fresh, and maybe it sounded weird but it tasted different from the water back in Florida. Or maybe it was just because he was so damn parched by this point that Felix could have dragged this water up from a swamp and it still could have tasted amazing.

Felix gave him a gentle nudge. “Hey, Cry? You want something to eat? I’m guessing you haven’t eaten anything for a while. You hungry?”

To be truthful, yes, he was fucking _ravenous_ , but he didn’t say anything. He’d taken too much already- kept Felix, one of his best friends, up ‘till buttfuck o’clock with worry about him and then actual _turning up_ at said friend’s house and practically passing out in his arms like an overly-dramatic character in one some overly-cheesy video game he once played. He hadn’t really passed out; it’d been more of falling into a blur of movement, light and noise. There’d been the sound of dog barks- probably Edgar, he figured- and practically being lowered onto the couch, a hand on his forehead and an apology as his sweater was pulled-

_Wait, what?_

His face was fucking _burning_ , and he looked down to realise that he was wearing clothes that he hadn’t been wearing before. Sitting up again, Felix’s face was just as red as Cry’s.

“Yeah, um, shit bro, sorry… but, y’know, it’s like they say in the survival films and- and stuff. Heh, you know… no wet clothes, because of, um hypothermia. So like, I… my clothes are kinda too big for you, but I figured I needed to- should do something… you were shivering and I…”

Cry shook his head and laughed softly, trying to sound as carefree as he could with his head thumping the way it was. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, friend.”

 _He_ was worrying about it, because shit, Felix had practically stripped him down and changed him into his own dry clothes and Cry was fucking _praying_ to every religious deity he could think of that Felix hadn’t taken it upon him to give him anything other than a pair of sweats, a t-shirt and a sweater. Please say he hadn’t lent Cry a change of underwear either. _Please._

Felix was still carrying out a commendable impersonation of a tomato. “I didn’t want to, seriously bro, I thought I should, but I know why you’d… why you’re mad.”

“It’s fine. Seriously Felix. Don’t worry about it.”

They were stuck within a web of agonisingly awkward silence again for another few minutes until Felix coughed awkwardly. “Hey, Cry?”

He lifted his head from the empty glass he was staring into. “Yeah?”

Felix shifted, moving slightly farther away from Cry on the couch. They were pressed pretty close together anyway, considering the size of it, but Felix seemed to still be trying to move as far away from Cry as possible. “What- what happened, Cry? How did it happen?”

How did it happen. God, Cry wished he knew. One moment he was finishing up a video, the next, his face was plastered over Twitter, Facebook, every social media websites he could think of. There were shares and retweets of his name, his address, his face, and with each one, his mask was stripped away bit by bit, until all that was left was him. Not Cry. Ryan. Just Ryan.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Felix. Wish I did, but I don’t.”

Of course, there were the emails. The same ones that he’d skimmed and promptly deleted. Thought they were trolls. Kids playing pranks.

Maybe he’d been wrong.

“Are you sure though?” Felix hedged. “I mean, the police could be on this right now. They can sort this out, you just gotta speak-“

“Felix.” Cry snapped. “Stop it for a minute. Just… stop, okay?”

He caught his words mid-flow and Cry couldn’t ignore the flash of hurt in Felix’s eyes. “Sorry. I was just thinking out loud.”

Cry ran a hand over his face. “I know… I’m sorry. My head’s fucked up, Felix, I’m freaking out a bit right now.” His stomach growled and he forced a smile. “Hey, on second thoughts, could I have some food after all? Anything really.”

Felix stood up and gave him a cocky grin, and Cry couldn’t help but think of the awkward guy with the messy hair that he used to play games with years ago. It was amazing, how much Felix had changed from them. He’d grown in popularity, sure, but he was just so much more confident, so much self-assured in what he was doing, both with himself and his channel. There he was, with a beautiful house, a beautiful girlfriend, with millions upon millions of fans- Cry couldn’t be prouder of him.

“Marzia was always the cook,” he said with a sheepish grin, “I’m not too bad myself though. My toast is first-class.”

Cry laughed, and this time, he didn’t care than it made he feel even worse “That’d be great, Felix,” he said, and even though he wasn’t really a big fan of toast, he figured that Felix would probably find a way to make it awesome.

 

The toast wasn’t first-class, but it was still pretty good.

The clothes Felix had given him certainly were too big for him- the sweater hung over his hands and the bottom of the sweats dragged on the floor as he stumbled from the living room to the kitchen. He felt like the stereotypical girlfriend dressed in her boyfriend’s clothes- just like Cheyenne would whenever she felt like stealing his hoodies- leaning on the counter as he watched Felix prepare the food.

‘Prepare’ was a relatively generous term. The slices of bread were shoved carelessly into the toaster slots and pulling a selection of condiments out of the cupboards. Felix was pretty disappointed when Cry only picked the butter.

“Really bro?” Felix furrowed his eyebrows as Cry focused on keeping his sleeves out of the butter. “I’ve got five different flavours of jam. I’ve got peanut butter, Nutella and Mar- I mean, vegemite, and you choose _butter_? Out of everything?”

Cry shrugged. “It’s simple. Safe. I like it.”

Felix snorted. “Yeah, well. You should change things up once in a while. Live dangerously.” He raised an eyebrow and Cry rolled his eyes.

“I’m not sure that changing the topping on my toast really qualifies as ‘living on the edge’” Cry air-quoted with a chunk of toast still between two fingers.

Felix shook his head. “Whatever you say, bro. It’s all just a matter of opinion really. Anyway,” he absently traced the tattoo on his bicep with his fingertip before pulling out his phone and checking the time, “I gotta go check on the video release. Need to make sure that today’s is still gonna go out. There’s some problems going on with YouTube at the moment-“

Cry nodded, only half listening as Felix eventually made his way out of the kitchen, still talking to himself about games he should start looking at. There was a skitter of claws on floor, which Cry figured was Edgar. He finished his toast, picked up his plate and went over to the sink to wash it away. That was the least he could do.

The microwave was just above the sink, and as he cleaned it up, he happened to glance up at his reflection in the black glass.

Or what should have been his reflection.

Instead, there was hollows where his eyes should be, his mouth gaping and caught in some perverse mockery of a smile. There was black liquid running out of every orifice- his mouth, his nose, his eyes, his ears- and Cry shrieked and dropped the plate.

“Cry? Ryan?” The door was thrown open and Cry looked up from his place on the floor- when the shit did he actually fall to his knees?- and up at Felix, who was staring down at him with sheer horror on his face.

“Shit. Ryan, your hands. What the fuck happened?”

Cry looked down at his hands and the blood trickling lazily through his fingers. “I… I dropped the plate,” he muttered. “Shit, I’m sorry Felix. I didn’t mean to. I just- I don’t know what happened. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Felix crouched down next to him, taking his hands in his own. He’s far more careful than Cry would have imagined. “You shouldn’t have tried to pick the plate up again, you fucker,” he said, but the Swedish accent was soft and soothing. “C’mon, Cry, I’ve probably got something for this somewhere. I’ll sort this.”

Cry’s fingers were tingling, like pins and needles, and he couldn’t take his eyes from the blood on his hands. There was a long cut running across his left palm, and there was a slice through his fingertips on his right.

“Ryan” he said, with only a hint bitterness, and Felix looked up from Cry’s hands with a quizzical look as he shrugged. “Cry’s pretty much gone now.”

Felix smiled. It was almost a sad smile- as if he was resigned to the fact that Cry had given in, happy that he was trusting him, disgusted that this had all happened anyway.

Felix’s eyes were blue; blue as the sky in Florida on a summer day, when Cry would lay outside and drag stories together with the shapes of the few clouds there were. Felix’s eyes were blue, like a lake Cry could through himself into and sink forever.

Felix’s eyes were beautiful, and Cry had to drown that pang of buried emotion that threatened to rear its ugly head when he looked into them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm a useless human being for not updating this in about forever.  
> I'm sorry about that.  
> If it's any consolation, I'm trying to use the whole I-hate-myself vibe to actually get myself to write MORE stuff rather than less, so hopefully there'll be updates at a faster rate sometime soon.  
> Thanks for reading though! :D


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Russ sounded slightly disappointed too when Cry told him that he was at Felix’s. Maybe it was because he’d thought that Cry would have gone to see him instead, and if Cry had been in his right mind, he probably would have. It would’ve been cheaper than buying a last-minute train ticket to England too.

Felix was recording videos. Cry could hear him screaming into the microphone from the kitchen and he smiled to himself over his cup of coffee, pushing his glasses further back up his nose as he stared at the laptop screen in front of him.

Aside from Felix’s yelling, the room was incredibly quiet. It wasn’t particularly noisy in Florida- not like the churning hum of congested traffic, bustling crowds and too-loud music staining the air like cigarette smoke- but it was still louder than here. It was nice, though, sitting down at a kitchen table listening to the empty sound of _nothingness_ , and maybe it was a thing he could get used to.

Felix had lent him a spare laptop he had lying around (of _course_ Felix had spare laptops- he was earning _millions_ of dollars a year) after Cry admitted that he had ran out with only his mobile, a few hundred of dollars and the clothes he was wearing, meaning that he had very few ways of keeping in contact with the outside world.

Not that he felt much like talking to the rest of the world at this point: he was actually enjoying staying at Felix’s just on the sheer basis that he’s almost completely cut off from the world. He never told anyone where he was planning on going when he first took off, and no one would ever expect his first port of call to have been to the house of the no.1 subscribed YouTuber, especially since they don’t appear to be as close as they used to be- you know, the whole cutting back on collabs together and any kind of public communication in general (Cry wasn’t going to admit to anyone but himself that he really did miss the hours and hours of gaming sessions, the Skye chats that would have at least one of them awake until four in the morning thanks to the inconvenience of living in completely different countries).

After about ten minutes of Cry insisting that he didn’t need anything from him, Felix had literally forced the laptop into his hands before into his recording room with a giggle that was far too childish for a fully grown man. Then again Cry figured that Felix’s occasional immaturity was one of the reasons his channel did so well. Not that it was a bad thing, because Cry could understand why so many people would want a few minutes a day of excitement, sex jokes and a shitload of energy when there’s so little of it in the real world.

Hell, Felix made him feel more awake just by being in the same room as him.

That room, in this case, being the kitchen, and Cry was still feeling pretty good even though Felix was still an hour into video recording.

The kitchen wasn’t particularly messy, but there was a corkboard above one of the kitchen counters- decorated with pink ribbon and probably Marzia’s idea, since he couldn’t really imagine Felix being organised enough for something like that- which was covered in leaflets. There were ones advertising modelling, fashion shows, clothing designers, and Cry’s gaze was drawn to one pinned in the very centre with a large circle drawn around the text in permanent marker. Something about a fashion show in Italy or something, which would explain why Marzia wasn’t home.

Cry couldn’t help feel glad about that, especially considering the final conversation he’d had with her; voice still soft and kind, but tinged with a steely bitterness he’d never noticed before, the friendly look in her eyes masking the hint of worry that had been there all day, but he’d only just recognised.

After that conversation, he’d cut his visit short and got one of the earliest flights back to Florida, her words still ringing in his ears. Marzia was amazing, and he was happy Felix had her- she was clever and sweet and kind, she cared the world about him and was exactly what Felix deserved. Cry couldn’t have been happier for him.

But he was still incredibly glad that she hadn’t been home when he’d stumbled up to the door. She wouldn’t have said anything unkind or turned him away- in fact, it would probably have been the opposite- but after what she’d asked of him, he still would have felt like he’d let her down.

Cry couldn’t particularly remember what he’d done when he’d first seen his face thrown up over social media- he’d called Cheyenne at one point, considering she had always managed to keep his head above the metaphorical water whenever shit had gone down, but in this case, she’d just managed to make it worse.

And yeah, he still felt slightly guilty about the way he’d reacted when he’d found out what she’d done, especially since the only motive behind it was well-meaning, but still. She’d had no right to do what she did, even she knew that, and he still didn’t appreciate it.

As if to prove the point, his phone buzzed feebly on the kitchen counter, where he’d left it for the last hour. The message alerts were knowing at his brain, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn it off. It had almost ran out of battery anyway. Last time he’d checked, he’d almost hit eighty messages over the last two, maybe three days, and even though he hadn’t bothered took look, that message should have been the third one in the last four hours. He glanced up at the digital clock on the microwave- if Russ was a few hours back, then it should really be around the time he would have been waking up anyway, so that would likely explain the latest message.

Another buzz. Goddam, was he popular all of a sudden.

He sighed. To be honest, that was actually making the problem worse. Joking aside, all this brand new publicity over every social media site in the world had meant that his YouTube channel’s subscriber count had double in the last two and a half days. The comments were filled with _‘is he going to continue with his videos?_ ’ and _‘what’s going to happen now? This is so fucking cool!_ ’

His face, his name, his address were still tumbling into internet news pages all over the world, and even a small internet news channel had managed to pick up on it, asking him if he’d agree to a small four-figure sum for an interview. God knows if they actually had the money to do that, but he’d refused (obviously).

Felix, just like Cry had asked (begged), hadn’t put anything out on social media about him turning up at his house. There was the expected video upload announcements, a few random ones to spice up Twitter and confuse a hell of a lot of people, but nothing else. He hadn’t even blinked when Cry had asked.

 _(“’Course I wouldn’t,” Felix had said._ _“I’m not gonna do anything stupid. Don’t worry about it.”_ )

“For fucks sake! Edgar! _Gå och bry Cry istället!_ ”

Cry sat up as Edgar skittered into the kitchen in a flurry of claws and black fur, unable to grip on the tiles and crashing head-first into Cry’s leg.

“Ow! Shit, Edgar!” The pug scrabbled to his feet, tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth and his tail wagging furiously as Cry rubbed his shin. Edgar almost looked like he was laughing at him as he stood again and nudged Cry’s foot with his face expectantly. He scratched at the band aid around his forefinger, and the deep cut he’d managed to make picking up the bowl yesterday sent a spear of pain running through his hand.

Cry looked down at Edgar, back up to the hundreds of unchecked notifications on display and sighed. “Sorry friend, but I’ve got to sort this out first.” He scratched the back of Edgar’s head and Edgar whined, stood up and waddled out of the room again. Cry turned back to the laptop, flicking through the onslaught of tweets he figured he should check.

He’d gained over a hundred thousand new subscribers over the last two days, and his email account had almost self-destructed over the amount of new emails he’d received. He’d already called back his Late Night Crew and his family- just calming them down with the same old “yeah, I’m fine. I just needed to get away from everything for a while, yeah? I’ll call you in a few days. Yeah, I’m going to see if I can speak to the cops about it or something. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Snake had been serious, Jund had been angry, Minx had been spitting venom down the phone. Cheyenne had been terrified, half-guilty and totally insistent that it wasn’t Cry’s fault. Russ had been the final person Cry had called, and he’d been apologetic and far too worried about his mental wellbeing. Maybe he sounded slightly disappointed too when Cry told him (and only him) that he was at Felix’s. Maybe because he’d probably thought that Cry would have gone to see him instead, and if Cry had been in his right mind, he probably would have. Would’ve been cheaper than buying a last-minute train ticket to England too.

Russ had apologised for giving Felix his number too- Cry had insisted that it was fine. In fact, he was pretty damn glad that Russ had.

He’d just finished checking through his emails- there were too many cruel ones, too many asking for interviews and begging him featuring in their YouTube videos. He deleted most of them without a second thought, and he was planning to put his head around Felix’s recording room and offer to take Edgar for a walk, who was passed out and snoring obnoxiously loud at his feet.

He’d been tagged in yet another tweet, but he wasn’t particularly sure if he wanted to open it. The majority of them so far had been the same handful of pictures of his face and more news about who he was. But he loaded it up anyway and frowned.

Yeah, there was a new picture of his face. One that, if he remembered correctly, was only on his private social media account. But that wasn’t the strange bit. That bit was expected now.

But the second picture didn’t make any sense.

Cry frowned, cleaned his glasses on the edge of his (Felix’s) t-shirt, and leant closer to the screen.

Cry had enjoyed playing Undertale. It had been one of the best games he’d played in a long time. The story was amazingly written and heart-wrenchingly beautiful in some points. The characters were so 3D that he’d almost been surprised that they hadn’t climbed out of the computer screen at some points. He’d been too attached to the characters to play the Genocide Run himself, but he’d still managed to watch Russ play it.

And Flowey had been incredibly disturbing, detestable and almost likeable all at once. And yeah, he liked the small psycho flower that had been designed to mess up the entire game and the gamer’s head.

But it didn’t mean that he appreciated having a picture of a smiling Flowey pop up next to a picture of his face, with the words ‘y o u i d i o t’ printed out underneath it.

Cry shivered and deleted the tweet, not even bothering to check the username. It wasn’t anything unusual anyway.

He was about to close the laptop, and then he looked back at his Twitter page. Sure, there were years of updates and announcements on there, but nothing special. Everything was ruined now, anyway- his pages were filled up with the same face and the same name and everything he’d tried to keep a secret, but everything was broken now.

He clicked at the cursor half-heartedly, took a deep breath, and deleted his Twitter account.

And then he opened up a new tab to his YouTube account and took a deep breath.

Maybe he should.

Maybe he shouldn’t.

He closed the browser. His YouTube Channel could wait for another day.

He looked down at Edgar, who blinked up at him. “C’mon, Edgar,” he said softly. “Let’s go and find Felix, yeah?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.  
> Yeah, I know. It's a filler chapter. And a really shit one at that.  
> I tried though. Promise.  
> Also it's hopefully gonna get better soon.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix didn’t move for a long moment, frozen on his couch. Oh shit, what if he kicked him out? What if he realised that Cry wasn’t doing him any favours by staying here? What if Felix finally admitted to both Cry and himself that Cry was nothing but a pain to be around? ? Oh God, Cry had totally fucked up.

“No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I just need to clear my head, get some breath back. Everything’s crazy at the moment, I just want it all to quiet down before I try to get back to normal. It’s nothing to worry about, but thank you… yeah, I know… I didn’t mean for all of this to happen… just don’t worry, it’s gonna be fine… I’ll call you soon. Thank you for all of this… I know, I know… bye, okay?”

Cry hung up the phone, and let out a breath that he didn’t realise he’d been holding. His mouth was dry and his head was spinning, all information buzzing around his skull like a swarm of bees.

“How was it?” Felix swung his feet off the coffee table and raised his eyebrows. “Your family good with your sudden vanishing from your home and country or what?”

He shrugged. “As well as it could’ve gone, you know. My mom’s stressed to hell, and my brother still wants me on the next plane back, but I don’t think I’m really up to that yet.” Cry let out a heavy breath and ran a hand across his face. “Can I like… have a drink or something?”

“At eleven thirty in the morning?” Felix frowned. “Maybe you should wait for a bit, that doesn’t really sound like the best thing for you at the moment.”

Cry sighed wearily. He needed a drink to hell, just to take the edge of everything, to smudge all of his messes into a blur, but he still wasn’t going to argue. “Okay. Right. Sorry, man. I’m kinda not just thinking properly at the moment. Everything’s still fucked up. Sorry.”

Felix hummed in agreement. “’S fair enough. Who was that on the phone then?”

“Russ,” Cry shrugged. “I’ve already spoken to my family, and Russ wanted to make sure I was okay too. You know how it is, he’s one of the best people I know. I can really count on him.”

Felix raised an eyebrow, and maybe it was just Cry’s imagination, but for a split second, Cry thought he saw a flicker of hurt flash across his face. But then it was gone again, the moment Cry actually tried to focus on it, and then it was just the smile again. “So you’re gonna be stuck with me, huh?” He was still smiling though, so Cry figured that he was still doing okay. At least Felix wasn’t angry with him for his sudden arrival on his front doorstep.

He fidgeted with the bridge of his glasses. “Yeah, that okay with you? I don’t really have anywhere else to go at the moment. I’ll try and sort something else out if you want.”

“Of course, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Felix stretched with a groan and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired, the shadows underneath his eyes darker than usual. He looked stronger than last time Cry had met him in person, a few years ago now- less of the scrawny, messy-haired guy, barely out of adolescence, that Cry used to know. He was stronger, muscles more defined beneath the sharp black of new tattoos.

No matter how much fitter he looked, he looked more worn as well. Like all the edges had been scrubbed away with a wire brush. Cry hoped that it didn’t have anything to do with him.

Felix stood up, brushed off his jeans and stepped away from him and into the kitchen. Cry stayed on the other couch, dragging his fingernail over the seam of the material. He heard a clink of glasses before Felix moved back into the room, holding two glasses of whisky in his hands. He offered one to Cry with a small smile.

“Change of plan. You look like you need one after all. Don’t like beer, do you?” Cry took it out of his hands gratefully and Felix continued anyway. “You know, if you’re going to stay around for a bit, we could get your phone sorted. So it takes calls in England without it costing you so much. It’d probably help you out, right?”

Edgar trotted into the room, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth so far that Cry was surprised that he didn’t trip over it. Felix scooped him up and threw him onto his lap, and Edgar huffed out a pleased growl when Felix scratched his ear. “How you doing, you piece of shit?” he murmured, and Edgar licked his face as means of reply.

“He managed to pull one of the power cords out right in the middle of recording,” Felix explained. “I had to restart _fucking everything_ again. He’s a piece of shit, I hate him sometimes.”

Cry snorted. “You love him really. You know you do.”

Felix fanned himself with his hand and gave him a wink. “It’s only you I love, you know that, Cry.”

Okay, so maybe Cry blushed a little at that, but he wasn’t going to admit it. Not to himself, and certainly not to anyone else. And he didn’t even blush _that_ much, anyway. Not that he was embarrassed or anything- just an automatic reaction to compliments. “You need to stop, Felix, don’t be an idiot.”

Felix just kept grinning. “You luuuuuurve me, Cry, you can’t hide your feelings.”

“I don’t know, man.” Cry shrugged. “I’ve been doing pretty good at doing just that so far.”

“So you do love me. Fucking knew it.” Cry didn’t realise that Felix’s smirk could grow any bigger, but it did. They sit in silence for another moment before Felix sniffs and returns to the previous topic. “So. Phone. What do you say?”

Cry pulled off his glasses, rubbing away a smudge of dirt from the lens. “I don’t know man. I don’t know how long I’m gonna be staying here, if I’m honest, so I don’t want to do anything too permanent, not yet. I don’t know what to do yet.”

“Okay, that’s fine then. Just tell me if you change your mind though, okay?” Edgar stretched on Felix’s lap, his claws sinking into his thigh, and Felix yelped and pushed him off. Cry nodded.

“Thanks, man, seriously. For everything. You didn’t have to do this.”

Felix took a final mouthful from his glass before gesturing to Cry’s own hand. “If you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it, man.”

Cry huffed out a laugh before taking another sip anyway. “Thanks, I’m good, don’t worry about it though.”

“So,” Felix leant back in his seat, running a hand through his hair. “What is it about the face-hiding then? The mask and everything? I mean, I understand some privacy, but-“

“I get it,” Cry interrupted. “I know why you think I’m too OTT about the whole anonymous thing, but you know that I’ve never felt good with this kind of thing.” He found himself flushing- he hated the feeling that Felix was judging him for it, the nagging itch of ‘ _he thinks you’re so stupid don’t you get that he thinks you’re a complete idiot’._

He bit his lip, but Felix nodded. “I understand that, bro, but c’mon, it’s not that bad. You can trust me about this- you get some people who’re pretty creepy, yeah, but you don’t get it that much.”

Of course. He hadn’t expected Felix understand. He had always been so brash and loud and excitable, so different from Cry himself, so it was seriously doubtful that Felix would ever have agreed with him. He seemed to love the spotlight, however much Cry flinched away from it.

Cry sighed. “It’s not that simple, you know it’s not. Come on, man, remember John Lennon? He got killed by some psycho right outside his house. There’s literally such a massive list of celebrities that have been killed and attacked and fuck knows what, right where they live.”

There was a pause. Maybe Cry had came off a bit too sharp there- he hadn’t mean to, be it’d been easy to get irritated. “Okay,” he said carefully, “but it’s not that much different from normal life, right? Because that could easily happen anyway, even if you weren’t famous.”

“Less likely,” Cry snapped. “And fuck, I don’t like people. You know that. The last thing I’d want is to be stopped in public, Christ.”

“Whoa, bro, calm down.” Felix lifted his hands in surrender, gave him a cautious look. “Seriously, I get it, it’s fine. If you want that, then it’s totally cool. Don’t worry.”

“Fuck load of good it did for me anyway.” God, he was being too fucking bitter. It wasn’t Felix’s fault- none of this was- and he was being a brilliant person by letting Cry stay round. He was being too good to Cry anyway, and all he was doing to repay him was being a sour sonofabitch. “I went to all that effort to keep away from the public eye, but I end up being thrown into it anyway. What the actual _fuck_ , Felix, why the hell did I deserve this shit?”

Felix actually looked shocked at this point. Shocked, and also slightly angry. “Bro. Stop with the bullshit, you know how stupid being angry at yourself sounds? There’s no reason to blame yourself for this and you know it.”

“I’m not angry at myself, I’m fucking angry at the motherfuckers who _ruined everything in the first place.”_ He threw down the glass, the sharp explosion of sound shattering the heavy veil of silence that surrounds them. Felix stared at him with wide eyes, lips parted, eyes flickering from the glass on the floor before up to Cry and back down to the glass again. From the corner of the room, Edgar growled.

“Shit,” Cry breathed. His hands were shaking. “Shit shit shit, I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to lose it like that, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened then. I’m so sorry, Felix, holy fuck.”

Felix didn’t move for a long moment, frozen on his couch, even when Cry continued to apologise. Oh shit, what if he kicked him out? What if he realised that Cry wasn’t doing him any favours by staying here? What if this broken glass was the last straw he needed to throw him out of his life? He wasn’t going to be any help, was he? What if Felix finally admitted to both Cry and himself that Cry was nothing but a pain to be around? Oh God, Cry had totally fucked up. Shit, he couldn’t have fucked this up, he couldn’t have lost Felix over something as stupid as this; no, he was just overreacting. He had to be.

Felix only opened his mouth when Cry was on the brink of working himself up towards a full-blown panic attack. “Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay man, you’re okay, I know it’s crazy and this shit sucks, but you’re gonna be fine. Trust me.”

“It’s all just so… _fucked up_ , man.” Cry ran his hands over his face, like he could drag the shadows that hung beneath his eyes away with just his fingers. “I didn’t mean to lose it then, you know that. I’m sorry man.”

“Cry, Cry, Cry…” Felix stepped over to him, pulling his hands down from his face and holding them in his own for a long second. At that moment, the most prominent thought going through Cry’s head was Felix’s old quip of _‘not gay just fabulouuuuus’_ until Felix dropped them again. “It’s cool, okay? You’re gonna be fine, I got you.”

Cry drags in another deep breath before lifting his gaze to meet Felix’s. “I’m sorry, friend, seriously, I’m not thinking properly and all of this-“

“Listen, why do you think this happened, anyway? It can’t have just been some lonely teenager with too much free time and nothing better to do than fuck around with other people’s lives, right?” Felix didn’t look angry with him, or even upset that there was broken glass littering the floor.

“What? That it’s actually some super hacking group after me? That someone like Anonymous have decided that I’m the new most dangerous person on their list? Don’t you think that it sounds a lil bit ridiculous?”

Felix shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to go on, right? And anyway-“ he winked- “maybe it’s to do with all your famous connections.”

“Okay man,” Cry snorted, pushing his glasses further up his nose and grinning at the wicked expression on Felix’s face. “Of course that was it. How bout you let me pick up your $4 Walmart glass of your floor while you sit back and revel in your fame and how many people love you, yeah?”

There it was again- that flirty smile that Cry fucking _adores_ \- and Cry most certainly _did not_ blush. “But it’s only you that I love, and you know that.”

No. Cry did not blush one bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.  
> So I haven't updated this is ages, oh my god, I'm seriously so sorry.  
> The positive news is that one of the main reasons I haven't been writing on here is that I've been offered an almost writing deal with someone, which was a) a massive surprise, and b) has been taking up all my time (editing and rewriting ect)  
> But oh well, the updates are going to a lot more frequent from now on. Hopefully, you should expect a new chapter in a few days.  
> Thank you so much for reading this so far! :D  
> (oh yeah, and I changed the title- the old one had just been something I'd thrown together at three in the morning ages ago, and to be honest I hadn't been too happy with it. I hope the new one seems a bit better :) )


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was just something… slightly threatening about them all, the fact that there was so damn many of them, the whole running Flowey theme that he could not for the shit of him understand. What the hell did it even mean? Was it some secret message he should for some reason be able to translate into English?

It was 3am, one week later, and Cry was awake.

Okay, yeah, he shouldn’t have been- the jetlag had finally worn off, and even though he’d never had too good of a sleep schedule before, but usually once he was asleep, he was totally out of it.  Dead to the world.

So why was he awake now?

It was dark- sickly orange light seeping through the gap in the blinds and stretching across the ceiling like clawmarks. Cry stared up at it, hands tucked behind his head. He’d been awake for just over an hour by now, but all tiredness had been wrenched from his mind. His body felt relaxed, almost heavy, but he was far too alert to ever get back to sleep.

Hell, he was practically jumping at every sound. He could hear the grumble of traffic outside his window, the buzz of electricity from the laptop charger next to his bed. Everything sounded so very awake.

The only thing that could’ve set him up like this must have been after everything that had happened that day- the laptop Felix had lent him had been playing up again, the screen flashing on and off every few minutes like a pulse, not to mention the emails.

So many of them.

The same old _‘Hey Cry’ ‘Hey Cry’ ‘Hey Cry’ ‘Hey Cry’_ in the email subject box, again and again, filling up his inbox space, and they were so many, all looking exactly the same, that it was actually bordering on scary.

He’d opened one, and it’d been nothing but the same smiling picture of Flowey the Flower, the evil creature that knew way more than he should about the workings of the game. And after the next three emails contained exactly the same picture- the yellow flower with a giant grin splitting its face in half like a wound, sitting in a pile of dirt- with absolutely no message to accompany them, he gave up. They were all from a ‘donotreply’ email address, nothing he could have used to work out the identity of the sender, and he’d deleted them all collectively.

There’d been other emails too- messages from well-wishers and the occasional spam. It was kind of crazy that people still seemed to care about how he was doing, even though it had felt like ages since he’d first had his face thrown up onto the internet; not once, but _twice_ , by two different people, and okay, he was still incredibly salty about that.

He was still not completely sure who he was more pissed off at- the first person who’d somehow managed to hack his laptop… or Cheyenne.

He figured that he still needed to call her at some point, but he still wasn’t sure if he was actually ready to talk to her yet. God, he was acting like a little kid over this- sulking, providing a first-class silent treatment- even though Chey had only been acting in _his_ best interests. He was such an asshole sometimes.

There was a part of him, one tiny, rather idiotic part of him, that was half tempted to open one of the _‘Hey Cry’_ emails he’d been sent, even though that was probably a fucking stupid thing to do. They were all probably from some teenager who’d been locked in his room for too long and had got bored of jerking off, so figured that he was just going to spam some American video gamer with stupid gifs and creepy, random messages, but for some reason they all scared him, just slightly.

There was just something… slightly threatening about them all, the fact that there was so damn many of them, the whole running Flowey theme that he could not for the shit of him understand. What the hell did it even mean? Was it some secret message he should for some reason be able to translate into English?

It confused the hell out of him.

Which was pretty much why he was so curious as to what the whole thing was all about.

He hadn’t been too sure where Felix actually was at that point in time, but considering he couldn’t hear any barking or farting coming from Edgar, Felix must have taken him for a walk. Felix had mentioned that Marzia had taken Maya, their other dog, to Italy with her for the fashion show that she was working on. Cry wasn’t even particularly sure why you’d need to take a dog with you for a fashion show, but he wasn’t going to question it. Felix looked kind of bored of explaining where Marzia was by the time Cry got round to asking, so he’d dropped the questions pretty quickly.

He’d just deleted the final email when his screen had flickered again, white to black to white again, like morse code. Help. The ship is sinking.

The laptop had completely shut down, and when he had finally managed to reboot it, there’d been a new email in his inbox. And this one had a different subject matter- ‘ARE YOU GOING TO OPEN ANY OF THESE OR NOT?’

What the absolute shit.

Someone- someone who seemed to have some sort of access to his email account- seemed to enjoy sending him emails. He had no idea why (or how) someone would, but there he was anyway, with a shit load of emails that just wouldn’t fucking quit.

Well, two could play at that game. He deleted that email, too.

And after that, everything had been fine.

He’d checked out some sites, moped around a bit, found some of Minx’s new videos to watch. Felix had arrived back with a takeout that he’d apparently consulted Cry on even though he couldn’t remember anything about that particular conversation.

They’d sat and watched some Swedish movie Felix had found on Netflix with the English subtitles turned on, Felix with his feet up on the coffee table and Cry perched on the edge of the couch with his food balanced on his knees.

“We should play some games at some point, you think?” Felix had asked, ripping Cry from his thoughts so fast that he could almost have given him whiplash. “You’re still so on edge; maybe it could help a bit.”

Maybe he’d picked up from Cry’s expression on his face that made him backtrack. “Whatever, man,” he’d said with a shrug, turning back to the TV screen. “It’s an idea, that’s it.”

There’d been a heavy silence after that- almost a wall of it, impassable and impenetrable, and Felix had gone back to editing videos and Cry had received another email alert. Felix had raised an eyebrow when Cry had jumped at the sound, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t from the same _‘donotreply_ ’ email address that the others had been- in fact, Cheyenne hadn’t emailed him in months, so that was biggest cause for confusion at that point. He opened it without a second thought, skim-read the message and clicked on the attachment before he could even have correctly processed what he was doing.

Or why the email address still didn’t seem completely right, even though it took him a moment to put his finger on it.

By the time he had, the attachment was seconds away from fully downloading, and he was still too late to cancel it.

The laughing gif of Flowey filled up his entire screen space, and it was almost crazy how a small bunch of pixels could manage to be so intimidating, But that was exactly what they were, especially when the words ‘Y O U  R E A L L Y  A R E  A N  I D I O T’ flashed up onto the page, and the laptop crashed.

It hadn’t actually been Cheyenne. It had been a trick- all some clever trick with an email account under her identity but with the name deliberately misspelled to avoid the accounts overlapping. He’d fallen for some cheap trick, most likely from the same kid who’d been spamming him for the last week and finally decided to up the game another notch.

It took an hour to finally get the laptop back up and running.

And now he was lying in bed at three in the morning, nerves jangling like loose knives, and something was keeping him awake, but he just couldn’t figure out _what_.

It was completely silent in the spare room; Felix had thrown him in there a while ago, and Cry had a small pile of clean clothes from his home in America thrown into there. Cry figured that when he got back to Florida, he owed Russ a takeout. Or maybe he’d get one of those singing post-people to stand outside Russ’ window and tell him how much he loved the guy for five night in a row.

There weren’t too many people out there that Cry would trust to go through his place and send him the stuff he needed for his impromptu escape to England, but hey, Russ was one of ‘em.

He sat up, pushed back the comforter and ran a hand across his face. He was exhausted- every muscle in his body was heavy and he didn’t know why, because it wasn’t like he’d really been doing anything. And he _hated_ not doing anything, which made everything even worse; he was lazy as fuck, but feeling worthless and helpless and incompetent was the main reason he’d feel into that deep, dark hole of nothing back before he started YouTube. He didn’t need that to creep back up on him.

It was only then that he was able to realise why he was still awake. It was the noise- a quiet, dull buzz of voices that he could barely make out, even when he was paying attention to it. It was there, like a lost memory, something he was reaching out for, something he could barely clutch onto, and every time he thought he could identify it, it was gone again.

It was quiet enough for him to barley notice it, but it was _there_ , and that could be the only reason that he was still awake at this ungodly hour.

Cry scowled. So what was it? And where was it coming from?

It didn’t sound like a conversation out of the street, and for split second, he wondered if it could be someone who’d broken into the apartment. Oh shit. What if that was it? Wouldn’t Edgar have barked though? But what if someone had broken in and hurt Edgar and Cry could hear a dull conversation as things were looked over and taken-

Shit. No. That couldn’t have been right. He would have noticed something like that. He dragged down a breath and forced himself to calm down. So what was it? He could have sworn that it was originating from this specific room.

As he slid out of the bed and stood up, the sound grew louder. And when he moved over to the nightstand, it did again.

On the nightstand was the laptop.

It took an unusual amount of time to load up the screen and open it, but he was sure that he’d shut it down last night. But when it loaded, there was a YouTube tab open.

“Cry Plays: A Pixelated Nightmare”.

The video was just closing, the ending music seeping through the speakers, before it restarted itself again.

Even after finding the source of the noise and shutting the laptop down again, this time ensuring it did, Cry didn’t get any sleep that night anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this took far longer than it should've done to write, but here it is anyway. Hopefully this is starting to get a bit more interesting ^_^  
> Also, here's a fun fact- the whole Virus!Cry thing is actually said to originate from A Pixelated Nightmare, so there you go!  
> Have a great day, and thank you for reading!! :3

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, this is the first thing I've written on here, so please don't hate me.  
> Or hate me, if you want, I'm not going to tell you what to do.  
> But yeah, so anyhow- thank you for reading, and please feel free to leave any kind of feedback, I'd really appreciate it :3


End file.
